Beyond The Symbolism: Sturgeon

It’s crazy that I’ve been having a lot of visions of water lately.

Great waters too.

It never comes in small increments.

These are rushing tides, rooms that fill with water, and crowds that seem to rush away as I gather my children to safety. The water is never gentle in these moments. It rises fast and full, and my only clear instinct is to pull the little ones close and get them somewhere higher, somewhere safer, while the rest of the scene moves in the opposite direction.

This feels so close to what the sturgeon have always known. They leave the saltwater they were made for and swim all the way upstream into freshwater just so their eggs can be laid where the saltwater animals cannot reach them. They risk everything for that journey. Like we should for God, our loved ones, and what we believe.

Their bodies are built for the salt, yet they push into the fresh land so their babies can be born healthy and protected. Then the instinct continues. The young ones eventually make their own way back to the saltwater, joining the great collective as one body of shared strength and determination. The parents do not force the return. They just create the safe beginning, and the next generation carries the same knowing forward, naturally.

How many people are going through this today, though? I receive so many messages on a daily basis from people who are struggling. How many wish they had the versatility the sturgeon carry so naturally? When I was younger, my father used to say that a person has to do what they have to do. He did not have the ability to read people the way some as I do. And what I see, is that not everybody is given the same strengths. One person might be able to speak up for themselves while another cannot. One person is afraid to go out and get a job while another steps into it without hesitation. One stays deeply attached to family while another finds peace in distance. Everybody has their own comfort zones. Teaching that change beyond a comfort zone can be healthy is important, yet sometimes people are not meant to leave certain safety zones. Those boundaries exist for their own good. Versatility does not show up in every person in every single way, although it should live in us to some degree.

I see this clearly with some of my students. They are given journeys and clear instructions on what to do within them, yet they do not always have the courage to begin right away. Yes, that delay can shape how things unfold later, but I know in my heart that time is only a breath. If they get to it, that is what matters most. The sturgeon operate by pure instinct. Mankind used to move that way too. Today so much of our foundation sits on empathy and on doing whatever feels best in the moment rather than what we quietly know we should do. That struggle surrounds faith. Many people freeze when situations turn hard. They cannot trust that things will turn out all right when nothing looks all right.

I liken it to a falling star. Stars fall in ways that feel unpredictable to most of us. We hope the star will burn up in the atmosphere and cause only small damage as it comes toward earth. But when a star falls it burns without question. Innocent ones standing in the path of that fire get burned. The only thing they can do is find the right tools to move themselves to safety. You cannot fight fire with fire. You can only meet it with the right wavelength of element. Earth is heavy. Most people reach for earth by arguing, trying to prove a point, or working hard to convince. Yet the Holy Spirit moves like a form of water. It can put out any fire. It is the lightest form, able to quiet the burning without drowning what still needs to live.

How many people can understand that parable? Faith is the water that carries us out of the path of uncertainty and danger.

But too much water, heavy water, can put the fire out and still drown other things in its way. Utility is valuable, yet one must also operate on faith and not let emotion push so hard that it carries a person in the wrong direction, away from the ground they are meant to stand on or the places they are meant to remain reversible about.

Today everyone is different.

People look through different lenses. What you say to one person another will not hear the same way, nor will they register it the same. Tough times make it harder for human beings to communicate, to show compassion, to care outside of their own bubble. But if people could move more like the sturgeon, traveling as a group, changing only when necessary in order to reach the place they need and then swimming back toward their origins, they would see something important. You are not supposed to grow spiritually so far that you forget who you were while becoming who you are meant to be. You can never forget where you came from. That is one of the most important parts of your story. Traveling back and forth between where you are, where you were, and where you still long to go brings a great deal of fruitfulness in life.

That is what the sturgeon represent for this August.

Growth that moves between faith and the different periods of your life.

Holding the vision of who you still wish to be. Refusing to give up because the safety of others depends on it.

The sturgeon are children for all of us. We are one another. I spoke with a young student of mine today who could not understand why the world is so subjected to suffering when God holds such immense power to end it. I have said it many times and I will say it again here. The only power God has to end it is when every person wakes up and sees what the true infection is.

Only then can we move in one direction together and begin to change the rest of the ways the waters flow.

Ariel’s light continues to shine across these waters. Uriel stands with her, steady and clear. Together with the summer siblings they hold this Sturgeon Moon open for us while the last two months of summer remain. It’s never going to change until people actually hold God within and move into change that’s right for all. This months magic is all about finding strengths you didn’t realize, getting past hard situations with faith and unconditional help, as well as birth of your new self and new beginnings.

May we learn from the ancient fish how to protect what is precious, how to trust the return, and how to move as one when the time finally comes.